TSA Plans to Use Face Recognition to Track Americans Through Airports
November 13th, 2017Via: EFF:
The “PreCheck” program is billed as a convenient service to allow U.S. travelers to “speed through security” at airports. However, the latest proposal released by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reveals the Department of Homeland Security’s greater underlying plan to collect face images and iris scans on a nationwide scale. DHS’s programs will become a massive violation of privacy that could serve as a gateway to the collection of biometric data to identify and track every traveler at every airport and border crossing in the country.
Currently TSA collects fingerprints as part of its application process for people who want to apply for PreCheck. So far, TSA hasn’t used those prints for anything besides the mandatory background check that’s part of the process. But this summer, TSA ran a pilot program at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and at Denver International Airport that used those prints and a contactless fingerprint reader to verify the identity of PreCheck-approved travelers at security checkpoints at both airports. Now TSA wants to roll out this program to airports across the country and expand it to encompass face recognition, iris scans, and other biometrics as well.
I had to double check the date on this article. I’m very surprised that EFF is so out of date. While there has been some mission creep with iris scans and such (trying to catch up with New Zealand), the use of boimetrics is old news.
This statement from the article is completely incorrect: “So far, TSA hasn’t used those prints for anything besides the mandatory background check that’s part of the process.” I use the fingerprint scanners each time I return to the US and have for a couple of years. At the Vancouver, BC airport (YVR) the fingerprint reading kiosks are actually on the Canadian side.